States & Cities › Colorado

Colorado trash pickup is run by cities, counties and private haulers, not by the state, and your pickup day comes from your city’s or hauler’s own lookup. Among the largest cities, Denver collects curbside itself; in Colorado Springs and Aurora residents hire their own hauler. Colorado has a PaintCare paint drop-off program and an electronics recycling law, but no statewide bottle deposit or mattress program.

Find your city

  • Denver — trash and compost weekly, recycling every other week, large-item every 9 weeks.

Other large cities and their official collection pages:

  • Colorado Springs: no city collection: residents contract private haulers. The City’s December 2025 Waste Diversion Action Plan says residents and businesses subscribe directly with private haulers for trash and recycling, an open market system. Official page ↗
  • Aurora: no city collection: residents contract private haulers. Every home must have weekly trash service, arranged with one of the city’s permitted haulers. Official page ↗

Missing your city? Suggest a City.

Who collects in Colorado

  • Denver Solid Waste — municipal department
  • Under the 2022 Producer Responsibility Program for Statewide Recycling Act, companies that sell packaging and paper products fund a statewide recycling system run by Circular Action Alliance, whose plan CDPHE approved in December 2025 with implementation due to start by summer 2026. Source ↗
  • Colorado bans residential lead-acid batteries, used oil, electronics and, with narrow exceptions, liquid wastes and waste tires from landfill disposal. Source ↗
  • Household hazardous waste collections are run by counties and cities, are limited to their own residents and may charge a fee. Source ↗

National haulers (Republic Services, WM, Waste Connections) hold contracts in many places; the city or county names the hauler for each street.

State-level rules

  • Container deposit: No statewide container deposit law. NCSL names the ten states with beverage container deposit laws (California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Vermont), and Colorado is not one of them. Source ↗
  • Paint: Colorado is on the PaintCare roster. PaintCare has run Colorado’s paint program since July 2015, with free drop-off sites paid for by a fee on new paint and CDPHE as the oversight agency. See paint. Source ↗
  • Mattresses: No statewide mattress take-back program. The Mattress Recycling Council runs statewide Bye Bye Mattress programs only in California, Connecticut, Oregon and Rhode Island. See mattresses. Source ↗
  • Electronics: CDPHE says computers and other electronic equipment are prohibited from landfill disposal, though a local government may vote to opt out in limited situations, and residents should expect to pay a recycling fee. Source ↗
  • Yard waste: No statewide landfill ban. CDPHE’s list of residential materials banned from landfills covers lead-acid batteries, free liquids, used oil, waste tires and electronics, not yard waste. Source ↗

State agency

Flag of Colorado

Flag of Colorado. Public-domain artwork. Artwork: Original: Andrew Carlyle Carson, Vector: Fleminra. Source. Resized to 480 pixels wide.

Materials with their own rules

Paint · Lithium-ion batteries · Household hazardous waste · Mattresses · Pizza boxes · Christmas trees

Neighboring states

Kansas · Nebraska · New Mexico · Oklahoma · Utah · Wyoming

Sources

Official pages used: cdphe.colorado.gov · cdphe.colorado.gov · denvergov.org · denvergov.org · coloradosprings.gov · coloradosprings.gov · auroragov.org · ncsl.org · paintcare.org · mattressrecyclingcouncil.org · cdphe.colorado.gov · cdphe.colorado.gov · cdphe.colorado.gov · cdphe.colorado.gov.

Back to all states.